quote:
Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Actually, through the lend-lease act, the U.S. was churning out planes and tanks for Russia and Britain.
The battle of Stalingrad is considered the major turning point of WW II conflict between Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. The U.S. declared war in December 1941, and entered the war in early 1942. The Battle of Stalingrad occurred in late winter 1942 and early 1943. Although Soviet Russians were fighting the battle, the supply of U.S. weapons allowed the Russians to turn the tide.
Russia was producing its own tanks, but not in the numbers needed to defeat Germany. Russia was very dependent on U.S. military hardware to turn the tide.
While the U.S. had troops on the ground as well in Europe (and Africa, and the Pacific), the U.S. was primarily a supplier of heavy weaponry, from U.S. factories that were well out of German/Axis bombing range. Mostly, the U.S. provided manufacturing for the Allied war against Germany. And Britain, France and Russia provided the fighting men. The U.S. could not have fought Germany by itself, and Britain, France and Russia could not have won without U.S. aid.
It was a group effort, none of the Allies was expendable to Allied victory.
[ 04-26-2002: Message edited by: Dave the Wonder Boy ]
Actually, just looking at this again, I think the Soviet effort can also be expressed in terms of war losses: Red Army dead, 9 million, and 18 million wounded. Civilians dead: 18 million. This in total is 26 million, more than 5 times the total of German war dead.
Rome was able to maintain its empire through a high birth rate leading to a large population. Its occurred to me that the Soviet Union won the Grat Patriotic War for the same reason: they were at the end of the day able to drag in soldiers from as far away as Siberia.
